"Nonsense--to be sure it is all nonsense--regular moonshine, Benjie," said Davie--"cannot be--you are overfatigued, man--you will laugh at all this to-morrow--but poor young De Walden--he must have fallen overboard when we drove the Don on the reef. God help us--what a melancholy report we shall have to make to Sir Oliver! but give us some grog, Lanyard, you sticky old villain, and I will lie down on the locker till daylight." I was bewildered--my mind from my early youth was tinged with superstition, but, nevertheless, what _could_ this have been? For four-and-twenty hours, whatever I might have drank, I had eaten little or nothing,--and I began to perceive that I laboured under the oppressive effects of such a recoil as one experiences after having had the folly and audacity to get tipsy on unaided champagne, without having stowed away a ground tier of wholesome solid food; besides, I now found that the blow on my head, hard and thick as that might be, was beginning to tell; for I was aware that my pulse was feverish, and I had had several attacks of giddiness during the evening. I puzzled myself for half-an-hour in vain; at length I came to the conclusion, no doubt the correct one, that it was a freak of the imagination. When I raised my head from my hand, by which time the lamp was flickering in the socket, I saw my friends sound asleep, so I was not long in following their example, and worn out as I was, I soon forgot every thing, and was as fast as they were. I was awoke by the mate of the watch calling Mr Lanyard about half an hour before daylight. "We see the commodore, sir, about two miles on the lee-beam," said Mr Marline, as he stuck his head into the cabin. "Very well--I will be on deck presently--how is her head?" "South-west, sir--but the wind is very light." He retired--and Dick having rigged with an expedition unknown to all mankind, _barring_ a sailor or a monkey, went on deck. A restless fit had overtaken me, so I soon followed him. It was now four in the morning--there were clouds in the sky, but very little wind. In the east, all was clear--the morning star had already slipt her moorings, and was several degrees above the horizon, against which the rolling swell rose and sank as black as ink, except where the glorious planet cast a tiny wake on it, glittering in a small line of silver light; underneath, the glow of the advancing sun gradually tinged the sky and every shred of clouds with a crimson flush.